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[scow.0catch.com...]
How long did it take you to build?
Share with the rest of us, what's freeboard?
(freeboard... check out that chine, this baby is built for speed!)
<added>
WB, we have a lot of scows like that here. They're built deep like that for use as duck-blinds.
[edited by: rcjordan at 6:26 pm (utc) on Oct. 30, 2002]
The refernece to the freeboard was not in reference to the 3/4 inch ply ... although that is a bit of overkill considering some have used 1/4" balsa for similar boats. I was talking about the height of the sides of the boat from the water to the gunwhale. You could put bunk beds in that puppy and still stay dry!
(freeboard... check out that chine, this baby is built for speed!)
Yup, but I dare say if you put an engine on her, she may do lovely circles! Not going to track too well without a keel or skeg of some sort.
[edited by: Liane at 6:26 pm (utc) on Oct. 30, 2002]
My first was a 10', balsa wood sea flea which my dad built for me in our garage. He put a 7.5 hp Johnson on it. I got thrown off the lake the first week I had it for scaring the nice folks on our lake once too often.
He then built a flying J replica. It was a lot slower.:( but I got hooked on sailing! :)
[edited by: Liane at 6:36 pm (utc) on Oct. 30, 2002]
As for the comercial epoxy, nah, the fun part about this scow was that it was so cheap to build. <G> but because it is so deep, its very sturdy. I could stand up and dance a jig in it, and it hardly even wobbled. <G>
I had never built anything in my life and I had never been on a sailboat. It was 3/8 marine plywood, with nailed epoxy joints, covered with thin fibercloth and resin.
My son (12 years old) and I sailed from San Francisco to Costa Rica with only a long shaft 4 horse outboard for power. We went through Hurricain Andre off of Mexico, about 20 miles offshore, (I adopted several religions). I installed an eight horse diesel (hand crank) up on the beach between neep tides, because we decided to go through the Panama Canal.
We went through the canal, and we taken prisoner by the Sandonistas, (who were executing Misquito Indians)and finally released for 100 Playboy Magazines. Sailed out of Blue Fields (El Bluff), Nicaragua, into the Northers. Beat around Punta Gracias a Dios in Hondurous and hit a huge log, we could see ocean where our propellar shaft exited. We fixed it in the Bay Islands in the Bay of Hondurous with a big glob of polysulfide water curing rubber, then sailed to Cosamel, got kicked out of port by the Mexicans because we went to the ferry dock (both dinghys were destroyed lashed to the outer hulls by heavy seas). Sailed to Key West Florida.
I recommend it to everyone! All you need is some books and some insanity.
The playboys served two purposes, they provided my 12 year old educational material, so he could improve his reading ability. (He refused to go to school after the sixth grade...his mother tried, but put him on a plane to me while anchored in San Diego) (So, by the end of the trip he had a PHD in World Affairs and American hippie girls on vacation)
The magazines were prime trading material because they were illegal in almost all latin countries.
One magazine would get you a gallon of stud shrimp from a shrimp boat.
A friend threw about 500 on my deck as we were sailing out of Coronado where we were anchored off the golf course.
On that whole trip land was somewhere on the left! I tried taking sightings on the sun at noon, but I kept placing us near Australia. So, I just took sightings of the North Star, which gives you your latitude...however once you get to the equator it disappears! We sailed by compus and stood watches...even with our autopilot...4 hours on 4 hours off...most sails were no more than 5 or six days between ports. We always came into port right on the nose.
My son wanted to paint a big sign on the sails
WHERE ARE WE?
I have a derelict Telestar 26 tri in the backyard (the UK version) ...would love to grab a Gemini [sailnet.com] on a deal -but they are few and far between.
Right now, the town docks are brim-full of snowbirds, maybe I'll sign on and go see Liane.
I was divorced at 35, got custody of the kids, had separate property agreement, so I got the home etc. By the time I was 39 (1976), I was burned out on the computer business and the sexual revolution...and I was filthy rich. The oldest son went into the Navy, second son went to his mothers to finish his last year of high school and number three went to mothers because I couldn't get him to go to school (he played hooky and smoked Bull Durham roll your owns). So, I cashed out of my businesses, invested, built a sail boat and went sailing. I lived off my investments.
The costs of sailing then run an average of $500 per month, by anchoring out...no car...low spending. MANY cruising sailors worked in every port for local americans...boat work, electronics, motors, of course now-days a computer person would have a field day working contracts in each port city. A lot of cruising sailors were retired people, I knew several hundred back in those days. We crossed paths all the time. Then there were the RICH, they hired everything done...even BOAT SITTING. I knew a lot of young guys Boat sitting in posh yacht marinas in foreign ports.